ESP8266 Community Forum

I have used about a dozen ESP8266 modules over the past year mostly to run addressable leds for holiday light displays with Arduino FastLed sketches. However I constantly have basic stability problems when using ESP8266 boards. I have used ESP01, Huzzah, and Wemos boards but they all seem to have the same basic problems. I haven't been able to diagnose what is causing them, unreliability is very frustrating. I would greatly appreciate any advice or insight as to how I can improve the stability of ESP8266 modules. By stability, I mean I have the following problems:

1. the sketch simply stops running.
2. the boards will not respond to OTA requests via Arduino IDE and need to be power cycled to respond again.
3. the sketch will not start upon powering on, this happens a lot, needs to be power cycled several times to get it to start.
4. the board takes too long to connect to the router, sometimes a few minutes.
5. the board does not respond to the reset button, needs to be power cycled to respond again.
6. after uploading via OTA, the sketch does not start and needs to be power cycled and does not respond to the reset button.

These problems mean it is difficult and frustrating to work with the boards, but I think there must be things I can do to improve the problems. I have tried different power supplies, different wiring, and adding passive components such as multiple capacitors on the power supply rails. Can anyone recommend solutions or further troubleshooting steps for improving the use of these boards? I'll post photos of my typical setup.

Thanks

Hi,

I had the same issue at the beginning. I corrected it by :

• add a big capacitor at power lines
• ensure the CH-PD pin is securely connected to vcc as well
• in addition, most of my problems came from crappy breadboard

Bye

I don't think there is any intrinsic unreliability with most modules. I have lots running 24/7 for months and in some cases years without stability issues. I think a lot of users here also achieve reliable operation.

It is important to have good power supplies with decoupling close to the modules power pins. A good power supply is also no good unless connected by low impedance cables supported by local decoupling. Be careful when using USB cables in the power path. Many USB cables have significant impedance causing voltage drop.

The other issues that can cause stability issues are the software design used. With Arduino it is important that the foreground does not have any long delays as this will stop the background wifi stack working and will trigger watchdog resets. It is also good to have periodic checks for wifi connectivity and appropriate recovery behaviour if the local wifi connections have any outages.

Thanks for your help.

I uploaded photos of the hardware I am using. I have about 10 of these around the house so thus the desire for low costs and use of OTA. On the breadboard there is a LM1117 3.3V 800mA regulator fed from 5V from the wall power supply rated at 15A. The wires to the led strips vary from 5-15 feet in length and are 18 gage wire. When I measure the voltage at the VCC pin it's very close to 3.3V.

I placed a .1uF cap across the bread board power rails and another from the VCC pin to the ground rail. I also added a 470uF cap across the power rails. There is a 1000ohm resistor from CHPD to VCC. The reset button goes directly to ground.

I replaced some of the power wires with 22 gage wire instead of jumper wires and that has helped. Can anyone recommend code for maintaining the Wifi connection or addressing the OTA "no answer" issue? Any other suggestions are appreciated!